China Food Myths

[liuzhou]

Harking back to dairy, for a moment. Here's another example of that dairy produce that doesn't exist.

 

I recently found an online source for this.

 

 

 

The Chinese reads 北京蓝 (běi jīng lán)*, which means Beijing Blue. Despite the name, it is made in Xinjiang, China's westernmost province, about as far as you can get from Beijing and still be in China.

 

According to the description listed, it is made from cow's (sheeps) milk! I'm betting on the sheep. The area is known for sheep and not for cattle.

I haven't ordered it yet. It takes days to get here and it is over 35℃ heading to 40℃. I will order when it cools down - if it ever does!

*This name is now proving problematic as Beijing blue is also the local slang  for Beijing's chronic pollution problem.

Edited August 25, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

7 hours ago, liuzhou said:

Beijing Blue

A Google search suggests that a man named Liu Yang is the cheesemaker. Is this all BS?

[liuzhou]

3 minutes ago, Anna N said:

A Google search suggests that a man named Liu Yang is the cheesemaker. Is this all BS?

 

I think so.  I saw that. If he is making cheese in Beijing why is the cheese coming from 2,000 miles away?  I searched in Chinese and got no such information.

[Anna N]

22 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

I think so.  I saw that. If he is making cheese in Beijing why is the cheese coming from 2,000 miles away?  I searched in Chinese and got no such information.

Thanks. It’s curious. I will be  interested  to hear what you think of it if you are ever able to order it!  I try never to be without blue cheese in the house. 

[liuzhou]

I'm just waiting for someone to pop up to tell me about their Authentic Traditional Chinese Willow Pattern Serving Dishes!

Edited September 11, 2022 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

I'm just waiting for someone to pop up to tell me about their Authentic Traditional Chinese Willow Pattern Serving Dishes!

Oh but that hurts! I grew up with that pattern. 

[Arey]

well, it they were ironstone manufactured in the Potteries  you were eating off of authentic traditional chinoisserie willow pattern dishes.  If they were bone china you were eating off of authentic traditional china chinoisserie willow pattern dishes but if they were manactured in China you were eating off of  unauthentic traditional chinoisserie willow pattern Chinese china. I think my set was made in Japan. 

[liuzhou]

 

Not so much a myth, although it encompasses myths; more a misconception perhaps.

 

Today, I stumbled across a bizarre discussion in some corner of Facebook, when some clot claimed that chow mein was 100% American and unknown in China. Not so. Well, not exactly.

 

The name ‘chow mein’ is virtually unknown. It is a corruption of 炒面 / 炒麵* which in Mandarin (known in China as 普通话 (pǔ tōng huà)), the official and dominant Chinese language is chǎo miàn when rendered in pinyin the officially recognised transliteration. This is pronounced something like chow myen**.

 

No doubt someone will point out that chow mein is both the Cantonese name and a Cantonese dish. Wrong on both counts. In Cantonese it is caau2 min6. Also wheat noodles, which are always used in chao mian are mostly associated with northern China, while the south favours rice noodles (炒粉 - chǎo fěn when fried). The Cantonese area is about as far south as you can go in China.

 

One thing for sure, if you visit China and hope to find your favourite style of chao mein, you’re possibly going to be disappointed. 炒面 / 炒麵 (chǎo miàn) simply means ‘fried (wheat) noodles’, so is a category of dish and not a menu item as such. I only recall seeing it once on a menu as a dish and that was in a college canteen where they only had one choice. Rather than simply listing chao mian, menus will almost always give a specific type of chao mian of which there are many. Seafood chao mian, beef chao mian, pork chao mian, chicken chao mian, sausage chao mian, ham chao mian, egg chao mian, duck chao mian, donkey chao mian and many, many more. I’ve even see Spam® chao mian! There are also regional types such as Shanghai chao mian. There is a good illustration of the variety on offer here. These are only really sold in canteens and fast food type places; or at home; not usually in more upmarket restaurants.

 

Also, chao mian in China uses soft noodles of any description. The crispy chow mein noodles (a tautology if there ever was one) are unknown here in mainland China. Also the type of chow mein that comes with the brown sauce is unknown here. The dish may include some soy sauce, but more as a seasoning than a sauce.

 

Quote

“A great Chow Mein comes down to the sauce, made of soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, sugar and cornstarch for thickening. Slippery noodles slick with the savoury sauce is noodle heaven!”

 

This quote from one internet recipe describes something no one here would recognise.

 

I often cook chao mian and have posted many examples here but many people may not have considered them to be chow mein. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with whatever chow mein you get locally, just saying it is unlikely you’ll find it here.

 

 

* As ever, when I give two Chinese names, the first is in Simple Characters as used on the mainland and in Singapore, whereas the second is now only used in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and among some of the Chinese diaspora.

 

** Chow rhyming with brow; myen Is pronounced like yen, but with an initial /m/ sound.

 

Edited May 12 by liuzhou (log)

[haresfur]

On 6/12/2023 at 8:43 AM, liuzhou said:

Also, chao mian in China uses soft noodles of any description, but are usually wide, flat noodles. The crispy chow mein noodles (a tautology if there ever was one) are unknown here. Also the type of chow mein that comes with the brown sauce is unknown here. The dish may include some soy sauce, but more as a seasoning than a sauce.

 

Sounds like you are saying that the crispy fried wheat noodle, brown sauce (god awful) variety found in North America is an American invention in spite of the interesting linguistic similarities to what you find in China.

 

If I understand correctly, the early Chinese immigrants to N America (California initially and then spread eastward with the building of the railways in the US and Canada) were Cantonese. Perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong. So I wonder how they would have morphed their soft rice noodles into crispy wheat noodles.

[heidih]

11 minutes ago, haresfur said:

 

Sounds like you are saying that the crispy fried wheat noodle, brown sauce (god awful) variety found in North America is an American invention in spite of the interesting linguistic similarities to what you find in China.

 

If I understand correctly, the early Chinese immigrants to N America (California initially and then spread eastward with the building of the railways in the US and Canada) were Cantonese. Perhaps someone can correct me if I am wrong. So I wonder how they would have morphed their soft rice noodles into crispy wheat noodles.

Well we didn't have rice noodles. But mostly it is a generic label for a dish with variations - noodles, vegetables, sauces - filling and cheap. (like chop suey). The authenticity train generally crashes in my experience when we factor in migration and ingredient avaiability.

[Tropicalsenior]

1 hour ago, heidih said:

The authenticity train generally crashes in my experience when we factor in migration and ingredient avaiability.

You also have to factor in the propensity that the Chinese immigrants had to set up restaurants wherever they settled. As I understand it, they were first set up to feed the other Chinese workers but as the other workers began to eat with them and the people of the towns began to come to the restaurants, they had to dumb down the food to serve the tastes of the non Chinese in the areas where they settled.

Costa Rica is the prime example of this. In the smaller, local Chinese restaurants you will never find the crisp vegetables that you will get in a true stir fry. Everything has to be cooked to a mush or the Costa Ricans will not eat it.

When you add the adaptation to the available ingredients, it is small wonder that some of it bears no resemblance to true Chinese food.

[liuzhou]

I don't really have anything to add to what has already been said. Although chow mein was probably introduced to the USA by Cantonese speaking immigrants, they adapted to using local ingredients which were more easily available. The result in terms of the noodles was more akin to northern Chinese noodles. Lo mein and and chop suey ditto.

The wide variety of different chow meins around the world bears this out. Some of these bear zero resemblance to anything Chinese. It is against my principles to recommend anything from Wikipedia, but their article on chow mein, while containing some inaccuracies, does give a reasonable description of chow meins around the world.

 

What this is, I have no idea!

 

 

There is nothing surprising about this. Immigrants elsewhere from various parts of the world have taken their cuisine with them and modified it to local ingredients then to local tastes. Indian cuisine in Britain is often very different from that of India (often better, in fact) and features dishes unknown in India. In fact few Indian restaurants in Britain are actually Indian; they tend to be Bangladeshi or Pakistani. I remember reading somewhere (Bourdain?) that the majority of cooks in American Chinese restaurants are actually Mexican. Later generations of immigrants often shun restaurant work and seek more lucrative careers in medicine, law, finance and other professions.  Same with Indian restaurants in the UK. You don't see British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak dishing out chicken tandoori masala in the local curry shop!

Edited September 29, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[haresfur]

3 hours ago, heidih said:

Well we didn't have rice noodles. But mostly it is a generic label for a dish with variations - noodles, vegetables, sauces - filling and cheap. (like chop suey). The authenticity train generally crashes in my experience when we factor in migration and ingredient avaiability.

 

I understand the wheat. I don't understand the crispy.

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, haresfur said:

 

I understand the wheat. I don't understand the crispy.

 

The crispy noodles originated in Hong Kong, possibly influenced by the British who ruled it from 1841 to 1997. They would originally have been rice noodles. Certainly, crispy noodles aren't found anywhere else in China that I know of.

Edited June 14, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, liuzhou said:

I don't really have anything to what has already been said. Although chow mein was probably introduced to the USA by Cantonese speaking immigrants, they adapted to using local ingredients which were more easily available. The result in terms of the noodles was more akin to northern Chinese noodles. Lo mein and and chop suey ditto.

The wide variety of different chow meins around the world bears this out. Some of these bear zero resemblance to anything Chinese. It is against my principles to recommend anything from Wikipedia, but their article on chow mein, while containing some inaccuracies, does give a reasonable description of chow meins around the world.

 

What this is, I have no idea!

 

 

There is nothing surprising about this. Immigrants elsewhere from various parts of the world have taken their cuisine with them and modified it to local ingredients then to local tastes. Indian cuisine in Britain is often very different from that of India (often better, in fact) and features dishes unknown in India. In fact few Indian restaurants are actually Indian; they tend to be Bangladeshi or Pakistani. I remember reading somewhere (Bourdain?) that the majority of cooks in American Chinese restaurants are actually Mexican. Later generations of immigrants often shun restaurant work and seek more lucrative careers in medicine, law, finance and other professions.  Same with Indian restaurants in the UK. You don't see British Prime Minister dishing out chicken tandoori masala in the local curry shop!

 

I have noticed cooks in some local Chinese restaurants* are actually Mexican.  Likewise cooks in some local Japanese restaurants, as I am informed by a Chinese source, are really Chinese emigrants who speak his local dialect.  Why should it matter as long as long as the cooks can cook?  It's been about five hundred years since an Aztec blogger commented on the customs of Japanese immigrants.

 

 

*local Italian restaurants as well.

 

 

 

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Why should it matter as long as long as the cooks can cook?

 

It shouldn't, nor did I say it did.

 

What does matter is when a chef introduces a new dish of his/her own devising or makes a wild guess at a recipe without knowing anything about the cuisine they are 'contributing' to. See the topic below for examples. 

 

Edited June 14, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

Just to even things up, here is an example of the Chinese creating their own food myths for once.

 

Today, I posted this image in the Fruit topic.

 

 

These are 杨梅 (yáng méi), Myrica rubra. At least half the time, I see these descibed in Chinese literature written in English as waxberries. Waxberries they certainly ain't. A search for the Chinese name turns up all sorts of hits including from China Daily, the Communist Party controlled, biggest circulation English language newspaper all the way through to Chinese students' blogs, with many saying they are waxberries.

They are, in fact, Chinese bayberries and I love them. You are unlikely to come across them though as their importation is illegal in many western countries, not because of the fruit itself, but because of the insects the fruit attracts. I don't know about where you are but we do get dried samples when the fruit is out of season and they aren't bad, but the fresh, as usual, are much better. They are also used to make wine.

 

杨梅酒 - Bayberry Wine

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[AlaMoi]

(sigh . . . the names thing, again , , ,)

never heard of a waxberry - so I went looking:

 

https://www.specialtyproduce.com/produce/Waxberries_8460.php
Waxberries, botanically classified as Myrica rubra, are an unusual fruit belonging to the Myricaceae family.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrica_rubra
Myrica rubra, also called yangmei (simplified Chinese: 杨梅; traditional Chinese: 楊梅; pinyin: yángméi; Cantonese: yeung4 mui4; Shanghainese: [ɦiɐ̃².mɛ⁴]), yamamomo (Japanese: ヤマモモ), Chinese bayberry, red bayberry, yumberry, waxberry, or Chinese strawberry (and often mistranslated from Chinese as arbutus) is a subtropical tree grown for its fruit.

[liuzhou]

That is exactly the misinformation I was talking about. Waxberries are emphatically not Myrica rubra.

 

Quote

Waxberries are Gaultheria appressa, from Australia Myrica pensylvanica, from eastern North America Pollichia campestris, from eastern Africa and Arabia Symphoricarpos, a genus of the honeysuckle family. The name "waxberry" is also a common mistranslation to the Chinese fruit, Yangmei (杨梅) Zhang gao or Myrica rubra.

 

Quote

wax·berry

[ˈwaksb(ə)ri]NOUN

1. a shrub with berries that have a waxy coating

 

These do not have any waxy coating.

 

 

Edited June 16, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

On 8/25/2022 at 8:58 PM, Anna N said:

A Google search suggests that a man named Liu Yang is the cheesemaker. Is this all BS?

 

On 8/25/2022 at 9:08 PM, liuzhou said:

 

I think so.  I saw that. If he is making cheese in Beijing why is the cheese coming from 2,000 miles away?  I searched in Chinese and got no such information.

 

Almost a year later, but I found some more information on this. Despite the name, the cheese is, as I said upthread, made thousands of miles away from Beijing. To be precise, in Beijing Blue Cheese Workshop, No. 37-1, Kangping Road, Beitun, Altay City, Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang. (20+ years ago I took a train from Beijing to Urumuqi, Xinjiang's capital and it took four days! It woud have taken another day to get to Altay.)

 

The company was founded by Liu Yang but he can't spend much time there. He is Chairman of China Region of the World Cheese Guild, Lecturer of Cheese Culture at the French Cultural Centre, Beijing  and Knight of the Order of the Cheese Guild of Saint-Maure de Touraine France.

 

Liu Yang - image from advertisement on Taobao online shopping portal.

 

I had planned to buy some of his Beijing Blue last Christmas, but took ill in September last year and am still recovering. I'll try again this year. It's certainly too hot to ship now (35-38℃)

 

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

According to Wikipedia so it must be true,

 

Quote

Chinese restaurants in Western countries commonly serve [sweet and sour] chicken, pork, or shrimp

 

This is definitely true of the UK, where sweet and sour remains the second most popular Chinese food after ‘chow mein’. And with Chinese restaurants being the first choice for take home restaurant food in the UK, that lands sweet and sour near the top of the most eaten food list in the country. Sweet and sour certainly exists in China, but is nowhere near so popular. I can't remember the last time I saw it outside of a banquet setting.

 

But what interested me most in the article, and I’ve seen the same claims elsewhere, was the choice of proteins.

 

So, I decided to do a comparison of those “Chinese restaurants in Western countries” and the Chinese restaurants here in this Chinese city. I got onto my food delivery app and searched for ‘sweet and sour’ in the most common Chinese name - 糖醋 (táng cù, literally ‘sugar [and] vinegar).

 

There were three main choices of protein just as in Wikipedia’s article. However, not the same three! The most common choice was, of course, China’s default protein, pork. However, this was split into two distinct subcategories, sweet and sour pork tenderloin fillet - 糖醋里脊 (táng cù lǐ jǐ) - and sweet and sour pork ribs -糖醋排骨 (táng cù pái gǔ). I think those are different enough to treat them as different dishes, despite the common animal source. That is certainly how my neighburs think of them.

 

So breaking down the figures, I found 1,038 sweet and sour dishes available for delivery with the details being:

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin - 351

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs - 193

Sweet and Sour Chicken - 90

Sweet and Sour Fish - 404

Sweet and Sour Shrimp - 0

 

I have included shrimp (or prawns) for comparison purposes. Clearly, combining the two pork dishes makes that the most popular, but what may surprise people is that, of specific dishes, fish comes out top. It is certainly my experience that fish is what most often comes to people’s minds here at the mention of sweet and sour.

 

Shrimp however, popular in western Chinese restaurants, is completely absent. The simple truth is that shrimp are not easy sourced in most of China. I always smile ruefully when I see Kung-Pao Shrimp on a menu in the west. This Sichuan classic is almost unknown in Sichuan, a land-locked province.

 

The fish dishes usually utilise freshwater fish (yes, I know there are freshwater shrimp, too, but they are rarely used in western restaurants for the sweet and sour treatment.) Of those, 404 fish dishes, 218 are what is known as Squirrel Fish – 松鼠鳜鱼 (sōng shǔ guì yú) or Pine Fish – 松子鱼 (sōng zǐ yú). No squirrels or pine cones are involved. The fish, traditionally Mandarin Fish, Siniperca chuatsi, a freshwater species, is used (although grass carp or, in coastal areas, yellow croaker is often substituted). The body of the fish is scored in such a way that, when deep fried, the flesh opens up to resemble the tail of a squirrel or the petalled segments of an open pine cone. Prepared well, it can make for a spectacular banquet dish. After frying, it is coated with the sweet and sour sauce.

 

Squirrel Fish

 

As for the pork dishes, the tenderloin is normally dusted with starch (corn or potato starches are common), fried and again coated with the sauce. Most western restaurants try to replicate the Cantonese treatment known as 咕噜肉 (Mandarin: gū lū ròu; Cantonese: gu1 lou1 juk6).

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin

 

In Cantonese areas, including Hong Kong, this is made using vinegar, preserved plums and hawthorn candy to give colour. Most western restaurants use food dyes instead, resulting in that day-glo orange colour which amuses Chinese visitors immensely. Chinese sweet and sour tends to be darker in colour. Also western versions tend to be much sweeter than their Chinese counterparts.

 

Pork ribs 生炒排骨 (Mandarin: shēng chǎo pái gǔ; Cantonese: saang1 caau2 paai4 gwat1 ) are given a similar treatment. The ribs are always chopped to chopstick-friendly pieces. No Fred Flintstone ribs, here.

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs

 

It is interesting to note that most sweet and sour dishes are not cooked in the sauce. Nor is the protein usually battered, although a verion known as 鍋包肉 (guō bāo ròu) from Harbin in China's far north does use a potato starch batter. Also note, that the examples I have given are those most replicated in the west. There are regional variations and many other dishes featuring these proteins.

 

Images from Meituan (美团) food delivery app.

 

Edited August 9, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[KennethT]

3 hours ago, liuzhou said:

According to Wikipedia so it must be true,

 

 

This is definitely true of the UK, where sweet and sour remains the second most popular Chinese food after ‘chow mein’. And with Chinese restaurants being the first choice for take home restaurant food in the UK, that lands sweet and sour near the top of the most eaten food list in the country. Sweet and sour certainly exists in China, but is nowhere near so popular. I can't remember the last time I saw it outside of a banquet setting.

 

But what interested me most in the article, and I’ve seen the same claims elsewhere, was the choice of proteins.

 

So, I decided to do a comparison of those “Chinese restaurants in Western countries” and the Chinese restaurants here in this Chinese city. I got onto my food delivery app and searched for ‘sweet and sour’ in the most common Chinese name - 糖醋 (táng cù, literally ‘sugar [and] vinegar).

 

There were three main choices of protein just as in Wikipedia’s article. However, not the same three! The most common choice was, of course, China’s default protein, pork. However, this was split into two distinct subcategories, sweet and sour pork tenderloin fillet - 糖醋里脊 (táng cù lǐ jǐ) - and sweet and sour pork ribs -糖醋排骨 (táng cù pái gǔ). I think those are different enough to treat them as different dishes, despite the common animal source. That is certainly how my neighburs think of them.

 

So breaking down the figures, I found 1,038 sweet and sour dishes available for delivery with the details being:

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin - 351

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs - 193

Sweet and Sour Chicken - 90

Sweet and Sour Fish - 404

Sweet and Sour Shrimp - 0

 

I have included shrimp (or prawns) for comparison purposes. Clearly, combining the two pork dishes makes that the most popular, but what may surprise people is that, of specific dishes, fish comes out top. It is certainly my experience that fish is what most often comes to people’s minds here at the mention of sweet and sour.

 

Shrimp however, popular in western Chinese restaurants, is completely absent. The simple truth is that shrimp are not easy sourced in most of China. I always smile ruefully when I see Kung-Pao Shrimp on a menu in the west. This Sichuan classic is almost unknown in Sichuan, a land-locked province.

 

The fish dishes usually utilise freshwater fish (yes, I know there are freshwater shrimp, too, but they are rarely used in western restaurants for the sweet and sour treatment.) Of those, 404 fish dishes, 218 are what is known as Squirrel Fish – 松鼠鳜鱼 (sōng shǔ guì yú) or Pine Fish – 松子鱼 (sōng zǐ yú). No squirrels or pine cones are involved. The fish, traditionally Mandarin Fish, Siniperca chuatsi, a freshwater species, is used (although grass carp or, in coastal areas, yellow croaker is often substituted). The body of the fish is scored in such a way that, when deep fried, the flesh opens up to resemble the tail of a squirrel or the petalled segments of an open pine cone. Prepared well, it can make for a spectacular banquet dish. After frying, it is coated with the sweet and sour sauce.

 

Squirrel Fish

 

As for the pork dishes, the tenderloin is normally dusted with starch (corn or potato starches are common), fried and again coated with the sauce. Most western restaurants try to replicate the Cantonese treatment known as 咕噜肉 (Mandarin: gū lū ròu; Cantonese: gu1 lou1 juk6).

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Tenderloin

 

In Cantonese areas, including Hong Kong, this is made using vinegar, preserved plums and hawthorn candy to give colour. Most western restaurants use food dyes instead, resulting in that day-glo orange colour which amuses Chinese visitors immensely. Chinese sweet and sour tends to be darker in colour. Also western versions tend to be much sweeter than their Chinese counterparts.

 

Pork ribs 生炒排骨 (Mandarin: shēng chǎo pái gǔ; Cantonese: saang1 caau2 paai4 gwat1 ) are given a similar treatment. The ribs are always chopped to chopstick-friendly pieces. No Fred Flintstone ribs, here.

 

Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs

 

It is interesting to note that most sweet and sour dishes are not cooked in the sauce. Nor is the protein usually battered, although a verion known as 鍋包肉 (guō bāo ròu) from Harbin in China's far north does use a potato starch batter. Also note, that the examples I have given are those most replicated in the west. There are regional variations and many other dishes featuring these proteins.

 

Images from Meituan (美团) food delivery app.

 

I recently watched a YouTube video where a Sichuan chef showed how to make squirrel fish.  Can you do that treatment with any fish or is it species dependent?

[liuzhou]

On 8/9/2023 at 8:10 PM, KennethT said:

I recently watched a YouTube video where a Sichuan chef showed how to make squirrel fish.  Can you do that treatment with any fish or is it species dependent?

 

Although Mandarin Fish, Siniperca chuatsi is the preferred choice, it does get made with everything from carp to sea bass. I suppose any reasonably firm and meaty fish would work. I've never made it, but have eaten often. I'm not a huge fan of sweet and sour.

 

Mandarin Fish

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by liuzhou (log)

[KennethT]

2 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

Although Mandarin Fish, Siniperca chuatsi is the preferred choice, it does get made with everything from carp to sea bass. I supose any reasonably firm and meaty fish would work. I've never made it, but have eaten often. I'm not a huge fan of sweet and sour.

 

Thanks - I'm more interested in the squirrel-ing process, rather than the sweet/sour aspect. 

[liuzhou]

17 minutes ago, KennethT said:

Thanks - I'm more interested in the squirrel-ing process, rather than the sweet/sour aspect. 

 

Yeah. No reason it couldn't be served with another sauce, other than tradition. I'm imagining a spicy sauce. Doubanjiang based, maybe.